Why Choose a Handicapped Body?

Aaron: Many factors determine our choice of body. Before the soul incarnates much thought goes into the decision of what the specific focuses of growth will be for the given lifetime. A choice may be made to correct the misunderstandings of prior lifetimes, for growth in new areas, or for both. In any case, the spirit involved consults with its guides, and loved companions from prior lifetimes on the direction for growth. While each spirit receives loving guidance, you are always ultimately responsible for making your own choices.

We have said that much thought goes into this decision. The choice of body is never determined by convenience or pleasure. After the focuses for growth are decided, then the spirit, in consultation with its guides, determines the optimal physical plane situations for the growth that is desired. Factors considered here range from the choice of body, to aspects such as culture, living situation, and family.

Much care is taken to be sure the optimum conditions for learning are available. Please understand that by "optimum conditions" here I do not mean wealth, high rank, or even high intelligence or special gifts. I simply mean a choice of physical attributes and cultural and living situation that is best able to enhance the soul's opportunity to achieve the desired growth. Remember that the physical plane is a schoolroom for your soul. Also remember that the soul itself is never handicapped. With these ideas in mind you will see that a handicap that you, in your physical form, may consider as an obstruction is chosen as a form of instruction.

It is important to remember that the final decision is made with careful thought and with love. Always with love. The end result may seem cruel to a being on the physical plane who has forgotten the spiritual reasons for the choice. And, my dear ones, you do forget so easily. Sometimes a being who has chosen a difficult physical situation, such as a severe handicap, may completely lose sight of the reasons for this choice and become mired in bitter misunderstanding. He may blame outside circumstances for his discomfort rather than recognizing his own responsibility for his choice. When entrenched in this kind of distortion, the soul can obviously not make use of the chosen physical situation to attain the desired growth.

Sometimes, even with guidance, this forgetfulness and misunderstanding continues throughout the being's physical lifetime, both accruing new karma and necessitating the planning again toward the hoped for growth of that lifetime, in another physical body, in a new lifetime. Your resistance to learning causes you to manifest those experiences you need to teach you. What you are unwilling to learn in one lifetime, you will learn in another. Each lifetime brings new light to areas that previously were dark. Sometimes it is only a glimmer, at other times a brilliant glow. Always, your soul is growing back toward that Light which is its source and its home.

There is one more situation in which a being may choose a handicapped body. This choice involves both the soul's own growth and its willingness, in love, to become the fulcrum for another being's growth. Occasionally a being may choose to incarnate in a body such as one that is so severely retarded that little personal growth is possible in that lifetime. This is done to aid another or others, perhaps the parent or a sibling, who in its relationship with the handicapped being is able to gain important understandings, usually about love and giving. Here, the handicapped being serves as a catalyst. While love is the force behind all learning, the decision to incarnate in such a body is not entirely selfless. Remember that during this stage of repeated physical reincarnation your learning is not just on the physical plane. You learn on another plane while between physical incarnations. Thus, a being who has made such a choice, out of love and service to another, has expanded his own capacity for love, by the giving of his own self in love.

It may take a being many lifetimes to learn something that has become difficult for that being. In each new lifetime the optimal learning situations are chosen and you may try again. There is never any rush. You have all the time that you need. With each lifetime you add light. With each step you find your way, guided by love, when you are able to open your heart to that love. You are all on this path together. While the specific path is unique to each of you, the process is the same for all beings, and is one of those things that unites you into your oneness. Be patient. Find the reality of love, and follow it. Be as aware of your choices as possible and be responsible for them. Be assured that every being will find its way home.